1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the transportation of hospital patients, and in particular, to the transportation of patients who are attached to IV (intravenous) equipment or apparatus of the kind wherein there is an upstanding pole or standard, mounted upon a platform which is borne or supported for free-wheeling motion, as upon casters, with there being attached to the pole or standard at least the source of the fluid being fed intravenously to the patient, and often, additionally, suitable auxiliary equipment such as a volumetric pump. Although patients connected to such equipment usually spend most of their time confined to bed, occasions to arise in which it becomes necessary or advisable to transport them, as by means of a wheelchair or a cart or a gurney, to another location. It is not unusual for such trips (for example, to and from the radiology) to involve entering and leaving an elevator. The invention concerns apparatus which facilitates the making of such trips in a safe and convenient manner.
2. Description of the Prior Art
To the best of the inventor's knowledge, the usual practice has been that there is not provided any means which in any way links the free-wheeling IV standard to the vehicle (wheelchair, cart, or gurney) which is being used to transport the patient-passenger having the IV connected to him or her. The person in charge of transporting the patient thus has, as a part of the task, the difficulty of navigating the patient transport vehicle over any uneven places (elevator entries or exits, door jambs, etc.), while at the same time needing somehow to steady and/or guide the IV standard. The IV standard is an item which is, by its nature, of relatively unstable equilibrium and somewhat demanding in its requirements with respect to avoiding having its equilibrium upset. Attention needs to be given to the IV standard at the very times that the guiding of the wheelchair is most likely to call for the use of both hands. For the most part, transporting a patient in a wheelchair through places of the kind mentioned above has been, accordingly, a task that requires the services of a second person, and it is often inconvenient to arrange for such needed help. Accidents and near-accidents occur when the effort is made to transport such a patient without such additional help.
It is known, from U.S. Pat. No. 3,709,556, that there is provided a wheelchair which is of such construction that there is provided an upstanding pole or standard which rises from the back of the wheelchair and can serve to support the source of fluid which is being fed to the patient intravenously. Although such equipment may be satisfactory for use with patients who are not in need of intravenous feeding or medication of the kind which requires the use of a volumetric pump, it is not satisfactory for use with patients who do use that kind of equipment, the kind of equipment which is now commonly mounted upon a free-wheeling IV standard which is intended to travel with the patient. The prior art known to the inventor includes the following references. The Wilt U.S. Pat. No. 4,511,157, issued April 16, 1985, discloses apparatus for connecting a wheelchair to a portable IV stand which rides on wheels or casters. The teaching of the patent is that there is provided a substantially rigid connection between the two items, namely, one such that if the person pushing the wheelchair, which includes a frame, tilts it backwards, so that its "primary ground engaging wheels rotatably mounted rearwardly on said frame" remain in contact with the ground or floor while its "secondary ground engaging wheels rotatably mounted forwardly on said frame" are raised to be out of contact with the ground or floor, the effect is that the ground engaging wheels or casters of the "portable IV stand are raised from the ground to facilitate passage of said IV stand and said wheelchair over an obstruction on the ground". The Wilt patent also states that "in some applications it might be desirable to utilize elastic or resilient material to produce a rod which can slide inside a sleeve". It holds that kind of structure out as being not preferred. It contains no teaching of the use of a deformable liner member of foam rubber or the like, partly encircling the IV standard, to grasp it yielding with respect to vertical motion while resisting it or holding it steady against rotary movement.
The prior art includes Lisowski U.S. Pat. No. 4,338,875, issued July 13, 1982, "Boats Hardware System" discloses a pair of hingedly jointed pieces 55 and 56, each interiorly of hemicylindrical form. The clamp is secured in the closed position by means of a bolt which passes through the hole in the one piece and into a nut which is embedded in the co-operating piece 55. In the Lisowski patent's structure, the clamping member which has interiorly a pair of hemicylindrical surfaces is also disclosed as including a rubber plug member which fits into the hole in the clamp-half. In this respect, the Lisowski clamp member is provided interiorly with a deformable member of rubber which--at least for the purposes of Lisowski in the area of providing hardware for use with boats--affords a clamp with deformable interior member of rubber or the like to increase the grip of the clamp upon the generally cylindrical rail or other member grasped by it. Such a clamp would not permit the vertically extending and generally cylindrical pole of an IV stand to be grasped yieldingly as respects any vertical motion while resisting or preventing rotary motion of the pole.
The prior art also contains U.S. Pat. No. 3,356,330 to Rambelle, entitled "ADJUSTABLE SHORING MEMBER", which discloses a structure that contains, inter alia, a pin means which extends through the openings in tubular member, for locking together the tubular members. Rambelle uses the tubular members which are square rather than rounded, to prevent rotary displacement of one with respect to the other even in the absence of Rambelle's pin means.
The present invention provides a structure inherently and more satisfactorily stable and less likely to become upset, in that it tends to keep all of the ground-contacting wheels of both the IV stand and the wheelchair on the ground, regardless of any irregularities in the floor surface which may be encountered by a particular one or ones of them during travel over said floor surface. The mere encountering of a bump by the caster wheels of the IV standard or by the forward, smaller wheels of the wheelchair is not necessarily an occasion calling for a tilting of the wheelchair back onto its large, rear-mounted wheels, something which probably requires the exertion of attention and effort by someone other than the user-occupant of the wheelchair. The structure of the present invention, with its more flexible and stable structure, is suitable for operation by the unaided effort of the user-occupant; and even in the case that the wheelchair is being propelled by someone else who is in a position to apply force to the rearwardly projecting handles and thereby tilt the wheelchair in order to enable it and the attached IV stand to clear an obstruction, there is less reason to need to take any such action. The more flexible and stable structure of the present invention thus affords the wheelchair occupant a smooth ride and an improved capability for self-propulsion.